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Trump has called for a return to the "ideological test" for immigrants introduced in 1952

There is another major force feeding the Cold War overtones in the 2016 campaign -- Putin

Washington (CNN)The Cold War is suddenly back as a hot topic in American politics.

A quarter-century after the fall of the Soviet Union handed the United States victory in a titanic ideological duel, the era's mythology is echoing through a presidential election taking place in a new age of fear and threats.

Republican nominee Donald Trump drew an analogy Monday between dangers once posed by the Soviet Union and the more recent peril of Islamic terrorism.

"In winning the Cold War, President Ronald Reagan repeatedly touted the superiority of freedom over communism and called the USSR the Evil Empire," Trump said in a major speech in Ohio. "Just as we won the Cold War in part by exposing the evils of communism and the virtues of free markets, so too must we take on the ideology of radical Islam."

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The billionaire went on to mine the Soviet-obsessed 1950s to find a new approach to battling terrorism, particularly in the elaboration of his expanded policy on Muslim immigration.

An 'ideological test'

Trump called for a return to the "ideological test" introduced in 1952 for aliens attempting to move to the United States. And he called for "extreme vetting" to stop the infiltration of potential radical Islamists.

"In addition to scraping out all members of the sympathizers of terrorist groups, we must also screen out any hostile attitude towards our country or its principles, or who believed Sharia law should supplant American law," he said.

The Republican presidential nominee's evocation of a black-and-white age when the identity of the enemy was obvious and when US power was at its apex suits his political style -- which emphasizes tough talk and harshly taking down adversaries.

But it also fits with the historical inflection point of 2016, as US global supremacy is being challenged by a host of rising and revitalized powers -- not just one -- and Americans' anxieties stem in part from questions about the US's future primacy as a world leader.

In one sense, Trump appeared to be reaching back to the Cold War for a time when America's enemies were well defined, unlike the constantly evolving and fear-inducing terror threat from groups abroad like ISIS and the homegrown radicals that they inspire.

The Cold War was also a time of fear -- sparked by the real possibility of nuclear annihilation. Yet in retrospect, the period is now remembered with some fondness, as it ended in an American triumph forged by a galvanized populace and successive administrations of different political stripes that deployed American values and power to great effect.

While there are some similarities between then and now, there are key differences, particularly in geopolitical terms. Some experts believe that comparing the war on terror to the struggle against Soviet communism is unhelpful.

From superpower to regional rivals

"There are some resemblances to the Cold War in America's current circumstances, but they have nothing to do with terrorism or ISIS or al Qaeda," said Michael Mandelbaum, professor emeritus at the School of Advanced International Studies, saying that a 25-year period when the United States faced no great power rival was now drawing to a close.

"Now we have returned to a period of rivalries," said Mandelbaum, author of "Mission Failure: America and the World in the post-Cold War Era." He noted that it features an "ambitious China and an aggressive Russia and an Iran which is resolutely anti-American seeking to become a dominant power in the Middle East."

But Trump's nostalgia for the Cold War only goes so far, and in a sense that's surprising.

After all, a former KGB operative who called the fall of the Soviet Union "a tragedy" is running the Kremlin, has Moscow pursuing its most aggressive post-Cold war foreign policy and stands accused of meddling in the US election with an espionage hacking operation targeting Democratic leaders.

Yet Trump instead has praised Russian President Vladimir Putin, seeming to have regard for his strongman style of leadership and ability to assert himself on the world stage, perhaps seeing a template for the kind of figure he would like to cut in international diplomacy.

This is one reason why Trump's use of Cold War imagery to address the threat from terrorism fails to convince some critics, who believe that the billionaire's true aim is to stoke a much more sinister suspicion of aliens that has emerged at various points in US history.

Photos:The ISIS terror threat

Photos:The ISIS terror threat

People flee the scene of a terror attack at Istanbul's Ataturk airport on June 29. Turkish officials have strong evidence that ISIS leadership was involved in the planning of the attack, a senior government source told CNN. Officials believe the men -- identified by state media as being from Russia, Uzbekistan and Kyrgyzstan -- entered Turkey from the ISIS stronghold of Raqqa in Syria, bringing with them the suicide vests and bombs used in the attack, the source said.

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Photos:The ISIS terror threat

The ISIS militant group -- led by Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, pictured -- began as a splinter group of al Qaeda. Its aim is to create an Islamic state, or caliphate, across Iraq and Syria. It is implementing Sharia law, rooted in eighth-century Islam, to establish a society that mirrors the region's ancient past. It is known for killing dozens of people at a time and carrying out public executions.

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Photos:The ISIS terror threat

Kurdish Peshmerga fighters fire missiles during clashes with ISIS in Jalawla, Iraq, on June 14, 2014. That month, ISIS took control of Mosul and Tikrit, two major cities in northern Iraq.

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Photos:The ISIS terror threat

Traffic from Mosul lines up at a checkpoint in Kalak, Iraq, on June 14, 2014. Thousands of people fled Mosul after it was overrun by ISIS.

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Photos:The ISIS terror threat

ISIS fighters parade down an Iraqi street in this image released by the group in July 2014.

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Photos:The ISIS terror threat

Aziza Hamid, a 15-year-old Iraqi girl, cries for her father while she and other Yazidi people are flown to safety after a dramatic rescue operation at Iraq's Mount Sinjar on August 11, 2014. A CNN crew was on the flight, which took diapers, milk, water and food to the site where as many as 70,000 people were trapped by ISIS. Only a few of them were able to fly back on the helicopter with the Iraqi Air Force and Kurdish Peshmerga fighters.

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Photos:The ISIS terror threat

On August 19, 2014, American journalist James Foley was decapitated by ISIS militants in a video posted on YouTube. A month later, they released videos showing the executions of American journalist Steven Sotloff and British aid worker David Haines.

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Photos:The ISIS terror threat

ISIS militants stand near the site of an airstrike near the Turkey-Syria border on October 23, 2014. The United States and several Arab nations began bombing ISIS targets in Syria to take out the group's ability to command, train and resupply its fighters.

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Photos:The ISIS terror threat

A Kurdish marksman stands atop a building as he looks at the destroyed Syrian town of Kobani on January 30, 2015. After four months of fighting, Peshmerga forces liberated the city from the grip of ISIS.

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Photos:The ISIS terror threat

Safi al-Kasasbeh, right, receives condolences from tribal leaders at his home village near Karak, Jordan, on February 4, 2015. Al-Kasasbeh's son, Jordanian pilot Moath al-Kasasbeh, was burned alive in a video that was released by ISIS militants. Jordan is one of a handful of Middle Eastern nations taking part in the U.S.-led military coalition against ISIS.

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Photos:The ISIS terror threat

In February 2015, British newspapers report the identity of "Jihadi John," the disguised man with a British accent who had appeared in ISIS videos executing Western hostages. The militant was identified as Mohammed Emwazi, a Kuwaiti-born Londoner. On November 12, 2015, the Pentagon announced that Emwazi was in a vehicle hit by a drone strike. ISIS later confirmed his death.

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Photos:The ISIS terror threat

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Photos:The ISIS terror threat

In March 2015, ISIS released video and images of a man being thrown off a rooftop in Raqqa, Syria. In the last photograph, the man is seen face down, surrounded by a small crowd of men carrying weapons and rocks. The caption reads "stoned to death." The victim was brutally killed because he was accused of being gay.

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Photos:The ISIS terror threat

An Iraqi soldier searches for ISIS fighters in Tikrit on March 30, 2015. Iraqi forces retook the city after it had been in ISIS control since June 2014.

Dead bodies lie near a beachside hotel in Sousse, Tunisia, after a gunman opened fire on June 26, 2015. ISIS claimed responsibility for the attack, which killed at least 38 people and wounded at least 36 others, many of them Western tourists. Two U.S. officials said they believed the attack might have been inspired by ISIS but not directed by it.

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Photos:The ISIS terror threat

ISIS also claimed responsibility for what it called a suicide bombing at the Al-Sadiq mosque in Kuwait City on June 26, 2015. At least 27 people were killed and at least 227 were wounded, state media reported at the time. The bombing came on the same day as the attack on the Tunisian beach.

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Photos:The ISIS terror threat

A man inspects the aftermath of a car bombing in Khan Bani Saad, Iraq, on July 18, 2015. A suicide bomber with an ice truck, promising cheap relief from the scorching summer heat, lured more than 100 people to their deaths. ISIS claimed responsibility on Twitter.

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Photos:The ISIS terror threat

Two women hold hands after an explosion in Suruc, Turkey, on July 20, 2015. The blast occurred at the Amara Cultural Park, where a group was calling for help to rebuild the Syrian city of Kobani, CNN Turk reported. At least 32 people were killed and at least 100 were wounded in the bombing. Turkish authorities said they believed ISIS was involved in the explosion.

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Photos:The ISIS terror threat

Spectators at the Stade de France in Paris run onto the soccer field after explosions were heard outside the stadium on November 13, 2015. Three teams of gun-wielding ISIS militants hit six locations around the city, killing at least 129 people and wounding hundreds.

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Photos:The ISIS terror threat

Law enforcement officers search a residential area in San Bernardino, California, after a mass shooting killed at least 14 people and injured 21 on December 2, 2015. The shooters -- Syed Rizwan Farook and his wife, Tashfeen Malik -- were fatally shot in a gunbattle with police hours after the initial incident. The couple supported ISIS and had been planning the attack for some time, investigators said.

Two wounded women sit in the airport in Brussels, Belgium, after two explosions rocked the facility on March 22, 2016. A subway station in the city was also targeted in terrorist attacks that killed at least 30 people and injured hundreds more. Investigators say the suspects belonged to the same ISIS network that was behind the Paris terror attacks in November.

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Photos:The ISIS terror threat

A boy walks past bloodstains and debris at a cafe in Balad, Iraq, that was attacked by ISIS gunmen on May 13, 2016. Twenty people were killed.

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Photos:The ISIS terror threat

Iraqi government forces patrol in southern Falluja, Iraq, on June 10, 2016. In late June, a senior Iraqi general announced that the battle to reclaim Falluja from ISIS had been won.

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This critique suggests that in singling out Muslims for new immigration checks, Trump is again seeking culprits for America's woes and trying to put a face on a new enemy that could capture public opinion and enhance his political power base.

In various periods, anarchists, Chinese workers, criminals, communists, Japanese, German and Italian immigrants have been the target of measures ostensibly meant to protect Americans.

Some Trump critics see the GOP nominee's speech on Monday as simply the latest illustration of a political method that relies on singling out culprits and enemies to bolster his own political base.

"What he is doing is thousands of years old. It goes back to the most ancient native danger of pure democracy that the founding fathers were extremely aware of and designed the Constitution against," said Michael Signer, an academic and author who is now Charlottesville's mayor.

Signer, who wrote a book on demagogues -- a category in which he places the billionaire -- said such politicians play to prejudices to set up a power base that follows them and them alone.

"For Trump, that generally has meant trying to create many different enemies of the American people," Signer said. "The enemies have ranged from Mexicans to women to Muslims to immigrants in general to Hillary Clinton supporters to certain states even."

A time of 'national crisis'

But Trump supporters defend his approach.

Kansas Secretary of State Kris Kobach told CNN there was nothing wrong, for instance, in conducting examinations at the port of entry of potential immigrants.

"You have a presumption that the individual does not get in unless certain boxes can be checked," he told CNN's Kate Bolduan. "We are in a time of national crisis just like we were in 1952."

Corey Saylor, a spokesman for the Council on American Islamic Relations, pointed to one major difference, however.

"The ideological tests during the Cold War were for political ideology," he said. "Is this ideological test going to be driven from whatever this panel decides is acceptable Islam?"

Still, there is another major force feeding the Cold War overtones in the 2016 campaign -- the brooding presence of Putin himself.

The Russian leader's international mindset was framed as he watched the humiliation of the Soviet collapse from dissolving East Germany as a KGB agent.

As president, he has often seemed to embrace a foreign policy based on the idea that what is bad for the United States is good for Russia -- or his personal political interests -- in a way that is not that different from a Cold War zero-sum game.

"I think he would be delighted if he and Russia are at the center of American politics and Russia is regarded as the great disruptive force," said Mandelbaum.